Edinburgh

Edinburgh is my favourite city in Scotland - my father is from here and I have visited several times.
It is full of old buildings and lovely gardens.
In the centre of Edinburgh is the castle - I couldn't get a great photo close up because it is covered in seats for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo - can you tell me what this event is?

 This is a view of the back of the Edinburgh Castle

 Looking across the city

 The Princes Street gardens in the middle of Edinburgh - you can see Scott Monument on the left.

There are even Olympic rings in Edinburgh - have you learnt what each of the rings represents?

 This is a statue of a very famous dog in Edinburgh - can you tell me his name and what his story is?

I am here for a few more days - my Grandma's birthday is on Sunday then I fly home on Monday. I will pop in to visit you at school next Friday then I start back at school the Monday after that, in a week!
I'm looking forward to seeing you all and hearing how wonderful you have been and what amazing work you have been doing!

I'll post one more blog before I go - all about the birthday party!

The North of Scotland

Kia Ora Kowhai Room

I’m back in Edinburgh after finishing my road trip around the North of Scotland. After Ullapool we went to Achmelvich Beach, which was this gorgeous wee, remote beach area. It had beautiful white sand and turquoise water. In the evening we saw a dolphin swimming around the harbour.

 On the way to Achmelvich Beach we took another detour to the other side of Scotland to visit Dunrobin Castle, an amazing place near Golspie. The best part of this visit was the falconry display they did in the gardens. I got to see all kinds of amazing birds of prey – have a look at the photos. They had them swooping right over our heads!

The last photo is Dunrobin Castle and some of it's gardens.

See if you can find out what each of these birds are!

The next day we went for a walk along the coast, along the cliffs to the Old Man of Stoer, a large stack – piece of the cliff which has separated from the mainland because of erosion.

That night we stayed at Durness on the north coast of Scotland. In Durness we went on a walk out to the headlands to see if we could see any puffins but it was VERY windy and probably too hard for them to fly. Luckily we got to see puffins the next day when we visited Dunnet.

After Durness we stayed in a place called Tongue and the next day drove to the very top of Scotland – a place called Dunnet Heads. There we saw the puffins flying, which made it too hard to get a photo of them.

 The last place we stayed in was called Helmsdale and then yesterday we drove back down most of Scotland to get back to Edinburgh, stopping at Loch Ness on the way to see if we could see the monster.

What is the name of this castle on the banks of Loch Ness?

My next post will be about Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.

Ullapool

Morning Room 3
I have uploaded your Science fair project photos on to the class website - they all look amazing! I really wish I could be there to see and read them all. If you are able to keep them safe somewhere I would love to see them when I get back to school - but only if there is room to store them!

I am in Ullapool. It is a little seaside town on the north-west coast of Scotland. Today we zoomed across Scotland to the east coast – it is only 50 miles wide at this point. We visited Fortrose – a town my Grandma lived in. At Fortrose we saw some dolphins – just swimming, no jumping so the photos aren’t great but it was lovely to see them – there were quite a lot swimming up the harbour.

Then we went back to the west coast, drove to Ullapool and spent the afternoon walking around the town.

Tomorrow we move to Achmelvich Beach - look for pictures of it - I have my fingers crossed for a sunny day!

I will be back in touch in about 5 days – no internet for the next few places.

From Miss Lyall

Scotland!

Hello Room 3

I am in Scotland now – where my Dad is from. I had to take a 4 hour train ride to get here from London.

I started in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. I have visited Edinburgh before, in 2008 before I started working at Weedons and when I was 10 years old – we lived just outside Edinburgh for nearly a year.

I’m going back to Edinburgh at the end of my trip so I didn’t do much sight seeing this time. I’ll write about Edinburgh later in my trip.

I picked up my rental car and my cousin (from New Zealand) and I set off for Loch Lomond. I am driving for this part of the trip – luckily the roads are pretty similar to NZ – only they drive in miles per hour rather than kilometres and their top speed on the motorway is 70 miles per hour, which works out to be about 115km per hour!

On the way we stopped to say ‘Hello’ to Hamish the Highland cow – can you tell me why Hamish is famous?

We had a great drive through the Scottish countryside. We are staying at the Loch Lomond YHA – it is in a really old building and looks really amazing. There are lots of old buildings in the UK that are used as hostels and hotels.

Train trip...

Hello Kowhai Room

Today we travelled from Glencoe to Fort William, where we caught the Jacobite Train – an old steam train. It was an amazing journey and travelled over a famous viaduct called the Glenfinnian Viaduct. It is mainly famous because of a certain movie… can you tell me which one?

After the train ride we drove north. We are staying in Torridon, a remote village on the north-west coast of Scotland. We had to travel on single track roads to get here – they are roads that only have one lane with several passing places for when you come across another driver.

Tomorrow we go further north to Ullapool. Then we visit the following places: Achmelvich Beach, Durness, Tongue, Helmsdale before going back to Edinburgh. See if you can find those places on a map and maybe why I have chosen to visit them.

I will try to update the blog but we are going to very remote places and the internet is often hard to get.

I look forward to hearing from you all! Have a great week at school.

Bute

Morena Kowhai Room!

Another day in Scotland and a lot of driving! Today my cousin and I visited the Isle of Bute and the town of Rothesay. Bute is a little island just off the west coast of Scotland near Glasgow.

Remember how I went kayaking down the Whanganui River during the last summer holidays? Well Rothesay is the place that my Great-Great Grandfather came from and he is the person that mapped the Whanganui River.

It was really amazing to think that we were walking the same streets a relative of mine did over 100 years ago.

After Bute we took a long drive over the Highlands of Scotland and ended up at Glencoe – one of Scotland’s ski villages. Unfortunately it was pouring with rain all the way here so I don’t have any photos of the amazing views around here.

Tomorrow is the exciting day… I’m not going to tell you where I am going but it does have something to do with Harry Potter!

Paris

Bonjour Kowhai Room :)
Yesterday I travelled to Paris, France - for the day! Yes I took a day trip to a different country - very strange idea!

I travelled on the Eurostar train, which is a very fast train - it only took us TWO hours to get there - the distance from London to Paris is the same as the distance from Christchurch to Dunedin.

I met my cousin there - she has been working in Paris for the last few months and she took me on a walking tour all over Paris - my feet were very tired by the end of it!

Here are just a few of the places I visited... along with some questions!

 Sacré-Cœur - a very famous church

The Louvre -  a museum with lots of famous art works in it - including the Mona Lisa - I didn't get to go inside because you have to queue for at least 3 hours just to get in.

Notre Dame - a VERY famous cathedral - see if you can find out just some of the things that happened here. Can you also tell me which Disney animated movie is set in Notre Dame?

 What is this famous place in Paris? I didn't go up it but I did sit and have a break underneath it.

This is the Arc de Triomphe. What can you tell me about it?

I hope you are all well - no more tummy bugs and colds! How are your science fair projects going - I would love to see photos of them - you can send them to my school email address and if you want I can put them on our class website page. Just let me know.

I'm off to Scotland tomorrow to do a road trip around the north of Scotland. Hopefully I'll be able to update as I go but it is very remote and I don't know if I will have internet access.
Keep an eye out!